Fatima Mernissi Quotes

Just as the slave master required the slaves to imitate the image he had of them, so women, who live in a relatively powerless position, politically and economically, feel obliged by a kind of implicit force to live up to culture's image of what is female.

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints.

When women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.

You—the outside world—will be told that it is our “culture” and “religion” to do X, Y, and Z to women. Understand that whoever deemed it as such was never a woman.

How can you respect a culture if the woman has to walk several steps behind her man, has to stay in the kitchen and keep her mouth shut?

The denial of female aggression is a destructive myth. It robs an entire gender of a significant spectrum of power, leaving women less than equal with men and effectively keeping them 'in their place' and under control.

Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.

And when a woman's will is as strong as the man's who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.

Feminists are in an untenable position, defending something they no longer believe in, and which history will force them to recognize was destructive of most of the central pillars of civilization. I'm just the first one to point it out publicly.

I think I've always had a certain amount of skepticism of this whole 'shut up and smile' theory. I haven't ever swallowed that pill so easily, although I tried.

Disguise our bondage as we will, 'Tis woman, woman, rules us still.

It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.

Women have to be extremely careful about choosing something that they consider an act of defiance that can really be used to further their enslavement.

What interests me is why men think of women as witches. It's because they're so fascinating and exasperating, so other.

In Victorian England, people were told they should discourage their wives from reading because it would lead them into all sorts of devilish wickedness.

I am emboldened by my looks to say things Republican men wouldn't.

Women have a predestination to suffering.

Allah has given men control over women.

… male religious leaders have had -- and still have -- an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.

Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages. And the subjection is always reinforced by morality.

Misogyny should be understood as the ‘law enforcement’ branch of a patriarchal order, which has the overall function of policing and enforcing its governing ideology. Sexism wears a lab coat, misogyny goes on witch hunts.... Sexism is bookish; misogyny is combative. Sexism has a theory; misogyny wields a cudgel.

Through the ages, from the beginning of time, I'm certain man has covered woman's face with masks. They are, however, his masks, not hers.

I describe the relationship between man and woman as a Hegelian relationship between master and slave. As long as men are able to increase their sexual value through work, fame or wealth, while women are only powerful through their body, beauty and youth, nothing will change.

I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women.

If you view history as a backdrop, set-dressing or fiction, then 'Pride and Prejudice' is hugely entertaining. My reread saw the misery of the female characters' reality. My new reaction was sadness and fury. Knowledge ruins everything!